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  • Contempt of Court in Pueblo Co.

    From Nick Odell@21:1/5 to All on Fri Oct 18 10:33:47 2024
    (Previously posted 7th Oct but presumed lost in recent outage)


    Leafing through the Denver Post, as one does[1] I came across this
    story about contempt of court in Pueblo Co.

    <https://www.denverpost.com/2024/10/04/pueblo-contempt-of-court-illegal-practice-inmate-released-aclu/>

    TL:DR
    Pueblo municipal judges routinely used contempt of court charges to
    inflate jail sentences for defendants facing low-level, non-violent
    charges. The city�s judges sent people to jail for months in cases
    that in other Colorado courts are punished by one or two days in jail,
    if that.

    How can that happen? Were there previously no checks and balances? How
    long has this been going on? Do things like this happen in other
    jurisdictions too?

    Nick
    [1]What could be more natural than a chap in Huddersfield, England
    being an avid reader of the Denver Post?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Nick Odell@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sun Oct 20 12:33:39 2024
    On Fri, 18 Oct 2024 10:33:47 -0700 (PDT), Nick Odell
    <[email protected]> wrote:

    (Previously posted 7th Oct but presumed lost in recent outage)


    Leafing through the Denver Post, as one does[1] I came across this
    story about contempt of court in Pueblo Co.

    <https://www.denverpost.com/2024/10/04/pueblo-contempt-of-court-illegal-practice-inmate-released-aclu/>

    TL:DR
    Pueblo municipal judges routinely used contempt of court charges to
    inflate jail sentences for defendants facing low-level, non-violent
    charges. The city�s judges sent people to jail for months in cases
    that in other Colorado courts are punished by one or two days in jail,
    if that.

    How can that happen? Were there previously no checks and balances? How
    long has this been going on? Do things like this happen in other >jurisdictions too?

    Also from the Denver Post:

    <https://www.denverpost.com/2024/10/17/grand-junction-municipal-court-public-defenders-right-to-counsel/>

    Coming from a country with a top-down legal system I find it quite
    difficult to understand how municipal courts can apparently vary so
    much in their treatment of those brought before them. Do these
    variations extend beyond Colorado? Do most municipal courts operate uncontrovertibly most of the time?

    Nick

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